1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data management, and particularly to selection of data elements.
2. Description of Background
Before our invention, one method of searching data has included categorical searches in which a user may select from elements or subelements of data contained within particular categories, also known as facets. In general, when users multi-select across facets they typically want to narrow the results. This may be accomplished via a Boolean AND operator, limited to the selection of only one element or subelement within each facet, thereby reducing the returned results to the common intersection of the selection of data elements across facets.
However, within a facet, users may not want to limit the search to only one of the nearby related elements or subelements within a facet. Additional selections, in conjunction with a Boolean OR operation may accommodate this. Attempts to allow the selection of more than one element or subelement within a single facet via a Boolean OR operation in usability testing have discovered user confusion with the increase in result count with multiple selections within a facet, as contrasted with the decrease when selections were made in different facets.
Different narrowing modes, specifically relating elements via a Boolean AND across facets and a Boolean OR within a facet, might be what users sometimes or often want to do, but it doesn't effectively work within the current UI structure. Conceptual confusion may result from within-facet narrowing that might work differently than between-facet narrowing, such as the non-narrowing increase in the numeric hit indicators within a facet resulting from multiple selection, for example. It is also generally a hard concept to have different narrowing methods for the different levels in the facet structure. Simplification has been provided by the restriction of within-facet selections to a single selection, but it isn't as powerful as some users may want.